Examples Of Syntax In Frederick Douglass

In the following excerpt from the autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, the third paragraph is distinguished from the rest of the passage due to the immediate shift of attitude, and exhibiting a somewhat of an ebullience through this hopeful vision of becoming forever free, which is effectively displayed by his use of figurative language and short and concise like syntax.

Through his disgusting state of once being a slave, Douglass uses figurative language to express his thoughts and emotions of being a slave, and becoming free. Douglass expresses himself in the first paragraph as “ a man transformed into a brute” as a result of Mr Covey “succeeded in breaking me[him].” Douglass defines himself as an animal through his explicitly harsh word choice, and seems to be degrades him from being a human being, who deserves desires and thoughts of his own. In contrast of this,

the third paragraph is where Douglass expresses his humanistic ideas, beliefs, and hopes, which is portrayed by the poetic-like essence, such as “ O that I were free!... Could I but swim! If I could fly.” The lyrical text exhibited by Douglass effectively allows the audience to sink into the writing, and allows people to receive the image, and to see his perspective. In Douglass’s uses of words like “God” and “swift-winged angels”, they serve to emphasize his spiritual connection with Christianity, and his utmost determination to finally become a free man.

Douglass’s syntax shifts completely between the first/second and third paragraphs.

The first and second paragraphs evidently consist of sentences of some sort of length, the third paragraphs are shorter, but, portray more meaning. Although the whole passage depicts powerful speech, the difference of syntax is defined by his day-to-day life, which is seen in the first and second paragraph, and his dreams, which is seen in the third paragraph. Furthermore, Douglass use of exclamation points, as it exemplifies his desperation and his yearning for freedom, in contrast to the first two paragraphs. Additionally, the parallelism in the third paragraph is completely different from the first two, Douglass uniforms his all his sentences in the third paragraph in a very similar way such as “O that I were free!, O, that I were on one of your gallant decks" (38). In using shorter very unsimilar syntax between the first two paragraphs and the third, Douglass renders that the slave is not an animal or beast, but a human being, that longs for nothing but to become

free.

Douglass’s use of figurative language and syntax in order to set off the third paragraph from the first two. Indeed, Douglass is essentially shutting down any argument a slaveholder could make, and without objection, the slavemaster is the one who has been “transformed into a brute”(16-17). Through Douglass’s inspirational and powerful diction, he is able to portray to many, that in his endless hope to break the his chains and becoming a free man, despite “Covey succeeded in breaking [him]" (11-12), reveals his internal power and his desire to be defined as a human, which is overall, rhetorical goal of this given passage.